Hi everyone,
I’d like to request something that even older simulators do quite well: Rain properly dropping off the windshield of the cockpit like it should
I think this is quite possible to do with minimal performance impact.
That wil be great!
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This is what rain should look and behave like when still, when moving and when departing
Watch from 4:35 onward to see what rain looks like on descent, landing and decel
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When standing still or when slow the rain should be a mix of bead formation and slow in-tact rolling as well as some slightly non-linear and higher speed streams/pathmaking (water takes the path of least resistance, sometimes the streaks zigzag a bit). Right now we simply have bead formation and rolling. Irl when a bead of water breaks or accumulates more mass than its surface tension will hold it begins to run in the form of a stream and will snake its way down the windscreen sometimes collecting other beads of water, but mostly dancing its way past them towards the ground.
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When moving at high speeds rain should be more streaky/stream-like movement mixed with some high speed direct water impacts (lots of tiny splashes/breakups) which creates some haze/mist. Rather than only the bead formation, rolling and streaking that we currently have.
The two above points assume no wind or negligible wind and relative wind from the front when in flight.
In the video below notice how the rain on the ground is almost purely of the streaking/streaming variety, despite the fact that the plane is stationary. The result of wind seemingly.
Rain is great in the sim, but as evidenced by the videos it definitely could use some attention. Also yeah, to paraphrase someone else, having functional windshield wipers would be neat. Right now beads of water just disappear on their own.
Voted.
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As you can see, the part marked in the picture seems to be the local effect made by Hollywood props group for the plane. I don’t know how to describe this problem, but it doesn’t seem to be compatible with the surrounding.
In addition, the windshield wiper is not working properly, it’s just moving.
If you have any other similar questions about rainwater effect, please say it, let developers see it and fix it.
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This issue listed as “not planned” for fixing
Currently, rain droplets are not dense enough on the aircraft windshields, especially on airliners. Wipers are also completely useless as they do not have any affect on the water droplets.
I hope this is changed to make flying in rainy weather more realistic. Rain drops should not only streak up or down the windshield depending on speed, but also pool together, blurring vision. Wipers should effectively clear visibility momentarily.
I know this will be taxing on the hardware, so having it be an optional feature would be best.
Examples:
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There are both droplets, and streaks, depending on airspeed. They just aren’t very clear sometimes. If you are not moving they will appear as drops. Turn on the engine, for a single engine prop plane, and these will then become streaks.
I’m sure they used to be more visible than this though. Soon after release I took the Cub up into a thunderstorm, and could see vivid streaks, both on the windshield as well as side windows.
Perhaps its a per plane issue? You can just about see them now at the extreme edges of the windshield, and they do show up a bit on side windows, but not as they once did.
There was even a discussion months back where there was a theory that they were more visible if you used a DVI lead instead of a DisplayPort lead. I kid you not.
This is a must. I’ve always thought the rain effect on the aircraft windshield as well as passenger windows are pretty sub par. I would love for this to be improved as you said, currently in the game the wipers have no effect on the rain what so ever…
Let’s hope this gets improved!
There are streaks, yes, but there’s no water pooling, so the water isn’t dense enough. You could fly in the worst thunderstorm imaginable and the water on the windshield will have practically no effect on the visibility (fog is something else).
I hope to see it updated so that turning on the wipers is a must to improve visibility, no matter how small that improvement is in really bad conditions.
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These effects are expected to be implemented as the SDK matures. I hope to start seeing more effects in general in a few months. Will they be any good? Who knows.
One thing I’d add is that rain drops in the air, themselves, are mostly invisible unless they’re falling from an eve or tree or something. Also, I think the little splashes look unrealistic. If anything I’d get rid of them. Ideally, you’d want the ripple circles that roll out from the impact.
What is about water effects, particle effects from the aircraft and so on
Don’t know if it’s just me but this seems to be another area which has regressed since the early builds.
Now there seems to be two clear planes of rain drops on the windshield, one big / moving slowly and another smaller / moving quickly. I can understand the idea of having a diversity of size but unfortunately the result is it just looks like there’s a set of raindrops close, moving on the windshield and another, further away floating in some kind of external surface.
Does this make sense to anyone else or is it just me…?
I want to bring this up as we have solved now many of the most urgent errors.
Windshield rain animation is unchanged since release.
We need now much better animations, not that current repetetive ones.
We need random rain showers on the VC, not always that same amount of drops.
We need working wipers
thx
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with wipers that actually work… you forgot that part ;p
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Thought “working wipers” covers “wipers that actually work”.
Sorry, my fault 
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The visibility can use a lot more degradation in heavy rain. Right now it doesn’t look like anything landing in heavy rain, it is quite scary in real life.
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Give us this please
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